1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus that includes an endoscope and a signal processing unit and performs endoscopy and to a communication method in the endoscope apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Endoscopes are in widespread use in medical and industrial fields in recent years. Endoscopes provided with image pickup devices are used with being connected to signal processing apparatuses performing signal processing for the image pickup devices.
For example, an endoscope apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-265410 has information storing means including a non-volatile memory and a central processing unit (CPU) functioning as control means in a connector unit of the electronic endoscope. A white balance setting etc. are stored in the non-volatile memory.
In this endoscope apparatus, data communication between the CPU in the electronic endoscope and a processor functioning as a signal processing apparatus has a fixed communication speed.
The communication speed in the data communication between the electronic endoscope and the processor depends on the performance of the respective CPUs in the processor and the information storing means and the stability of the system.